Tribute for Cap't Jack - Family and Career

     

     Jack’s career, his marriage, and the start of his family all began around the same time in the early 50’s.  When he got out of the service in 1950, he bought a new car and started taking courses at Portland Junior College - which later became USM.  It was his high school friend, Bud McCue that introduced Jack to Pauline.  How that came about: Pauline was living at Pine Point, and spending much time with her friend Sue Breton.  Since Bud and Sue were good friends, and Jack and Bud were hanging out again, one Sunday they drove out to Pine Point in his new car, and here is where Jack meets Pauline - this was the summer of 1950. Not to date my mother but 60 years ago she married Jack, and they moved to NY where he finished his 2nd year of college at RIT.  He graduated in 1952 and their first child was born in 1953.

Jack was a real photographic artist and film man.  He loved it so much that for many years we had a working darkroom in the cellar on Sargent Street.  Because photography was a passion not just a job, it extended to his family life, and therefore we have so many great pictures from throughout the years. The following images come from Jack's portfolio of photographic talents.  Since I wrote the speech, I get to show a baby pic.  I do not know how he got me in that pose or in those clothes!

     Dad was proud of his work.  After the interviews in 2007, he gave me reels of film that he had saved.  I am looking forward to getting them digitized at some point.  Probably, he was most proud of the work he did for the children at the Pine Tree Society.  I think he was also very proud of a special he filmed on whales that he really enjoyed doing.  If I was to choose his greatest film accomplishment, it would be the work he did on whales.

     One of my most positive childhood memories was going on work assignments with my Dad.  A few years ago, I wrote a journal entry about one those times.  I wrote:

It was great having a father as a photographer working in television. A couple of times I tagged along with him when he was assigned to film the governor at the State House. I remember entering the exclusive grounds of the oval office and being introduced to Governor Curtis sitting behind the big desk as my Dad began testing voice and lights. I had always viewed my Dad's work as special, and it having a coolness factor to it. This was one of those times.

     The Siulinski kids got to appear in local TV commercials and be a guest on the Lloyd Knight show.  In Dad's obituary, I wrote about the time I went on a plane ride in a 4 seater while he was filming the Prince of Fundy cruise liner for a TV commercial (see the image above).  What I did not say was I got so dizzy from that plane ride that I almost got sick.  When we finally landed, I felt like I was walking on the moon!  Still, it was a unique experience I will never forget.

Source: http://www.clker.com

Speaking of the moon, another distinct memory I have of something I did with my Dad was watching the 1969 moon landing live on the monitors in the CBS television studio in Portland.
In 1990, Jack retired after 27 years as a commercial photographer and camera operator for WGME-TV.

Catholic School Days

Pauline went to kindergarten at Brown Street School then to St. Hyacinth School for grades one through eight. From the variety of things collected by a family historian, here you see Pauline's grade school graduation brochure from 1943:

Here’s a Siulinski trivia question: What musical instrument did Pauline take lessons in while attending St. Hyacinth School? 

                     Photo credit: Schools of Berlin, NH
Pepere's brother and sister, who were both in the clergy, influenced the decision to place their daughters in Catholic boarding schools in New Hampshire. Jeanne and Lorraine went to a serious Catholic boarding school – where they had to wear black dresses with stiff white collars. When Pauline would visit her sisters every two weeks, she would tell her mother, "Don't you ever send me here!". Apparently, she said it enough times that Memere and Pepere agreed to find another placement. The chosen location was Berlin, NH where she attended the co-ed Notre Dame High School and lived at a convent called St. Regis Academy (image shown above) - walking distance from the school.

While Jeanne and Lorraine graduated from their school in New Hampshire, Pauline’s boarding school education was more tenuous. Pauline decided in her sophomore year that an all-girl Catholic boarding school was just not to her liking so much that she refused to go back while on Thanksgiving break.  She wanted more opportunity to date boys and more freedom in general. Using her birth order to her advantage (being the yongest daughter), she was able to swing a change in the high standards of her diehard Catholic parents.  Helen, Memere's sister-in-law, had attended St. Joseph Girl's School in Portland which may have helped to get her enrolled immediately. Here is a period picture of the school taken from Pauline’s newspaper scrapbook:

Oddly enough, she ended up in an all-girls school where she had to wear a uniform but this time she did not have to live at a convent. It was at St. Joseph's where she met a classmate, Sue Breton, who became a close family friend and whom I remember as a child. Sadly, Sue would die in a car accident about fifteen years later. Pauline graduated from St. Joseph's in 1947. From high school, she attended a two year secretarial school in Boston where she rented a room at a boarding house for students located on the Charles River.